Winter Solstice (2005)

'WINTER' FUN The strength of this New Jersey-set indie is in its chilly silences

In Winter Solstice, writer- director Josh Sternfeld takes the prefab indie-flick building blocks — uncommunicative families, impacted grief, and suburban stagnation — and constructs something quite marvelous: a realistic drama that looks and feels as inevitably true and moving as a good documentary. Understatement is Sternfeld's strength: Assembling muted vignettes about a bewildered New Jersey widower (Anthony LaPaglia), his two dammed-up teenage sons (Tadpole's Aaron Stanford and Storytelling's Mark Webber, both outstanding), and a neighbor (Allison Janney) who offers sunshine, the filmmaker is at his finest when he employs silence and inaction. What doesn't happen is more moving than what does.